La Antigua Guatemala 1

The colonial history of Antigua Guatemala was to change forever...

In 1523, Captain General Don Pedro de Alvarado began the conquest of the highlands of Guatemala and eventually captured territory all the way to Peru.

In 1524, Alvarado established the first capital in Iximche, and named it “Ciudad de Santiago de los Caballeros de Goathemala” (City of the Knights of Saint James of Guatemala).

On November 22, 1527, after several Cakchiquel indian uprisings, the capital was moved to a more suitable site in the Valley of Almolonga – to the present-day city of Ciudad Vieja.

When this city was destroyed on September 11, 1541 by a devastating mudflow emanating from the Volcán de Agua, the colonial authorities decided to move once more, this time to the Valley of Panchoy.

On March 10, 1543 the Spanish conquistadors founded present-day Antigua, and again, it was named Santiago de los Caballeros. For more than 200 years it served as the seat of the military governor of the Spanish colony of Guatemala, a large region that included almost all of present-day Central America and the southernmost State of Mexico: Chiapas.

In 1566 King Felipe II of Spain gave it the full title of “Muy Leal y Muy Noble Ciudad de Santiago de los Caballeros de Goathemala,” that is, the "Very Loyal and Very Noble City of Saint James of the Knights of Guatemala."

For the first century or more of its existence the city did not live up to the pretentious official title, but it ultimately grew into the most important city in Central America, filled with monumental buildings of ornate Spanish colonial architecture.

According to many authors, Antigua Guatemala in its heyday, with a population of perhaps 60,000, was surpassed in the New World only by Mexico City and Lima.

Throughout its history the city now known as Antigua Guatemala, or La Antigua, was repeatedly damaged by earthquakes, and always the Antigueños rebuilt, bigger and better.